


can you stretch a moment into a thousand

by Druddigonite



Series: Darkest Day AU [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bede has a foul mouth because of his time in an orphanage, F/M, Gloria kinda inherits it as well, Hop is only mentioned, Hurt/Comfort, Literally 99 percent of this fic is angst because I cannot write anything else apparently, Neither Bede or Gloria die just fyi, Non-Linear Narrative, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21913813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Druddigonite/pseuds/Druddigonite
Summary: Here’s the tragedy of it all. The tragedy is that for all the power you had in the world, you couldn’t save what mattered to you.Things go a little bit differently: Bede collects more wishing stones, the wolves never appear, Eternatus is in pain, and you are powerless to stop it. Everything goes downhill from there.
Relationships: Beet | Bede/Yuuri | Gloria
Series: Darkest Day AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578370
Comments: 19
Kudos: 90





	can you stretch a moment into a thousand

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A World Undesired](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21710158) by [Lunaru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunaru/pseuds/Lunaru). 



> I’m trying to get back to writing my original prose style, so have some Bederia C: Gloria specialises in bug types here
> 
> Title is from Ya’aburnee by Silent Planet

“This whole place is a ghost town,” Bede mutters. 

His rapidash leads you two down the dusty street roads, sandstone and tarp strewn like ancient ruins on voracious soil. There’s a pile of what looks to be fruit and vegetables, but they’re festering with flies and you look away and. Try not to throw up, because you can’t afford to lose your only meal of the day. 

All around you, the ground is reclaiming its bounty. 

The two of you climb the steep rugged slopes of what used to be stairs. The gym is gone, reduced to ashes. Fitting, you think, that something designed to be so ostentatiously flashy hadn’t lasted for long. 

“Holy shit.” Bede is looking at something in the distance, and you crane your neck over his shoulder to catch a glimpse. “Look at what it did to my biggest embarrassment.” 

Over the cliffside, against a hollow mountain face, lay the crumbled remains of two nameless heroes. 

Forgotten.

“Makes four towns, then,” you say. Your voice is dry and chalky from the heat, and it grates your tongue on the way out. You swallow the bitterness of despair before it overtakes you. “There’s nothing here. Let’s move on.”

* * *

It happens. Again, and again, and again. 

What shouldn’t-have-been, a skeletal amalgamation of warped ideals and sharp grief that swallows the sky, replaces the yawning chasm left behind with coils upon coils of fangs and fury,

“Gloria!” 

Pure power tearing through clouds and skyscrapers alike like pain, like vengeance, and you’re just a small speck in the eye of a cyclone,

“Gloria!” 

You try to summon the power to take one of your pokeballs, release your trusted pokemon to quell the storm, but your hands can’t move and you can’t breathe, and the beast that shouldn’t be lunges with all the wrath of a world too much, _you were never the hero_ —

“Wake up!” 

You lurch up in cold sweat, sucking in air like a drowned man, heart beating ten thousand miles an hour. You can’t see Bede by your side but you know he’s here, in the way you’ve known for several months now. 

“S-sorry,” you manage, because you’ve been waking him up for the past couple of nights now. Suck in another gulp of air. “G-give me a-a-a moment.” 

Bede doesn’t say anything. He’s not the one to waste his words, you think, on petty half-lies and condolences like _it’s okay_ or _I’m sorry_ that do nothing and help no one. 

Instead, he stays with you, until your heart settles back into your chest again, stays until you can hear the silence beyond your breathing. 

* * *

By the time you make it to Hammerlocke, Frosmoth is in too much pain to sleep. 

You hug and rock her in your arms, humming a song from your hometown as she whimpers. She’s your favorite, Frosmoth, too courageous for her own good, too willing to shield her friends with her life. 

Frosmoth, you think, is the type to die.

And that’s the tragedy of it all. She’s sacrificed herself to you, protecting your life at the cost of hers. Her left wing has been torn completely out of its socket, the wound left behind weeping ichor and pus. 

She’ll never be able to fly again. If she manages to heal in the first place. 

So you rock and hum, rock and hum, feel her grip on your arm grow weaker and weaker. You’re sitting outside the Hammerlocke gates, the ones that segue into the wild area. Up above, the stars are the clearest you’ve ever seen them, now that light and air pollution is a problem of the past. 

If you reach high enough, you can almost touch their inky depths with your fingertips. _Make a wish. Hope it comes true._

You feel the air crackle with psychic energy before Bede materializes, his hatterene at his heels. There is something otherworldly about him in the way starlight frames his hair like a halo, steps soundless like they never touch the ground, a solemn spirit warm at your side.

He's breathless when he crouches next to you, whispers misting the night air.

"Pokemon center machine isn't working, just like all the other ones. There's an unbroken potion underneath the shelves though." He passes a vial of hyper potion to you and you get a glimpse of his fingers, blue to the knuckles. After all the berry trees died, neither of you have had much to eat.

He's trying so hard, so you thank him with a smile because words have failed time and time again, brush your scarred hands against his in silent apology.

Frosmoth has fallen asleep, but she wakes up with a pained cry once you start spritzing the wound. _It hurts, I know it hurts, I'm sorry._ You're humming again, loud and frantic as she thrashes in your arms. The potion starts working, then it doesn't, scar tissue knitting together and splitting apart at awkward angles.

She bats the vial out of your hands with a swing of her remaining wing. It shatters against forlorn stone stairs, liquid weeping down its steps.

The world is silent once more.

Bede takes your hand. His are freezing but yours are too, and you squeeze with all the strength you have as he wordlessly leads you and Frosmoth down. 

_Today's a good day for stargazing._

The wild area is dead; grass seared to the roots, trees nothing but dark spires, barren. You lay on your back and imagine you're drifting between constellations, Frosmoth just a weight to still the roil in your stomach. The sky is beautiful tonight.

You release your pokemon. 

You’ve kept them in their pokeballs since Wyndon—so they don't have to see the thing their home has become, you reason—but in the end it only hurts them more, that they're wrung into a world that left them behind, their comrade fading in your arms. If your team is angry, they don't show it: Centiskorch coiling around the site, Vikavolt buzzing low and mournful, Golisopod bowing her head in silent vigil. Crustle crawls up and rests his claws in your lap (He used to race with Frosmoth when the two were snom and dwebble, but now she seems so small between them) and you'd give anything to be able to do _something_ , to help. 

You wish and wish and wish for a miracle, but the air is still, the universe unseeing. 

* * *

When you wake to a new era, the first thing you register is the quiet.

You haven't really heard silence until now. You've grown to wear sound like a second skin, not only the deafening roars of the crowd but also the summer serenades of the wild area, maybe the birdsong herald that echoed across the moors, back in Postwick. Compared to them this silence is the stifling kind, pervading your senses and devouring all thought. It is the silence of a world that stopped living.

The beast is gone. Wyndon is _melted_ , steel fused against steel like the dredges of a candle, long hardened after the wick burns out.

(And later you'd hate it, how you personified _that_ in such mundanity, but there's something about _seeing it_ and _being there_ that is always lost in translation, the isolation of trauma. Later, you'd realize that the world has made you silent too.)

You find Frosmoth by the storm of scales her wing has become, scattered everywhere like light snow and sleet. She’s hurt and her wing's _oh you don’t want to think about it_ and her pokeball has been blown to smithereens. You pick her up and whisper empty promises into matted fur. She’s given up so much, and you cannot repay her. 

You don't know how, but Bede manages to find you.

He’s outside where the pokemon center is supposed to be, wading through healing machine rubble and broken potion debris. Seeing him reopens an old wound—he’s the reason why Rose had all those wishing stones, why Hop’s mental health faltered, the reason why things have gone to waste. And where was _he_ during the fight on the tower? Where was _he_ when you needed him? 

Anger bubbles deep in your chest; when you speak, your words tear out a twisted snarl. “Look what the hatterene dragged in. Just in time, too.” 

Bede looks up at you. For a split second, his eyes widen in surprise, face flashing through a storm of complicated emotions, before it settles back into his usual defensiveness. He appraises you with a raised eyebrow. “You look like crap.” 

You bristle. “Well, maybe me and the entire city wouldn’t look like this if...if you gave a _fuck_ about something besides yourself. Maybe if you hadn’t pandered to Rose’s every whim—” and before you know it you’re advancing on him, pushing at him with a shove that hurts you more than it hurts him “—this wouldn’t’ve happened, Hop would still be alive, and everything would be fine and dandy!”

There’s a startlingly loud crack as someone’s back hits asphalt, and it takes you several moments to realize that it’s you. Hatterine’s pinning you down, emitting enough psychic energy to make your knees turn jelly, claws elongating and sharpening to needle-points. 

Frosmoth lets out a cry as she’s tossed aside. 

“Stop!” 

Bede pushes past a malformed light post to pull hatterene away, the pokemon hissing vehemently before she returns to her pokeball. For a second you’re impressed; it takes a high level of discipline to curb a hatterene’s murderous tendencies when strong emotions are nearby, especially one as powerful as his. 

“I didn’t know what I was getting into then!” He doesn’t lash back like you expected, short-fused as he is, but his fists clench white and he looks at you in a manner so close to pity it makes your blood boil again. “All I saw was a way out. Did you know what would happen, the moment you accepted Leon’s endorsement?” 

You’re about to retort that _at least it worked out for me_ when Hop’s face flashes in your minds eye (his last pokemon sprawled on the battlefield, the uproar in the stadium, how he couldn’t meet your eyes), and your fight dies with him. 

You’re tired. 

“Why are you here?” 

“After our match, I went back to the Glimwood Tangle to train.” Bede slumps against the ground, and you realize that he’s as dirty as you are, face smudged with lingering ash, hair slick with something wet. You aren’t the only victim, after all. “I felt a disturbance when I was in there, but it wasn’t until I tried to go back to Ballonlea and found the entire place _fucking gone_...that I realized something bad happened. The forest had protected me. I don’t know why me of all people, but it did.” 

He pauses, shoulders stiff. “Opal wasn’t with me.” There is no further clarification needed. 

“The first thing I did was teleport to Wyndon since, well, both the Champion and The Chairman were there, and they should be able to do something. I had to use Reuniclus, Gothitelle, _and_ Hatterene to make a safe teleportation. Shit, I should’ve known something was wrong then—you only need three or more psychics when you’re teleporting into an area none of them are familiar with.” 

You feel sick, dizzy. Two kids, stranded out at sea. 

“What are you going to do?” You ask, mostly for yourself. The conversation’s devolved, all idle banter and skirting around the truth. 

“Hell if I know,” Bede cradles his head in his hands, fingers clutching at his hair, and it looks like he’s going to scream but he doesn’t. Speaks instead “Since you’re here, I’m thinking...I’m going with you. Deny it all you want, but we’re better off working together. I can help you.” 

He’s playing hero, just like you used to. 

And maybe part of you still believes you are, because you reluctantly accept; you speak of the remaining towns like _possibility_ and survivors like _hope_ , and the two of you succumb together.

* * *

The thing is. The thing is that if the initial energy shock didn’t kill you, the natural disasters should’ve. 

Thunderstorms and acid rain, eating away at Turffield's grass until it's nothing but wasteland. Earthquakes, tearing Circhester apart until it’s just piles of rubble, a city put through a blender. Tsunamis, leveling the shoreline. Hulbury is miles underwater now, swallowed by the sea.

Dynamax is gone. After the incident, all of the dens seem to have short-circuited, Galar's proudest phenomenon disappearing into thin air.

Hours turn into days, days into weeks, weeks into months, and one day you wake up not knowing how long you've been living in this nightmare, only that it's not going to stop. Time and time again you and Bede comb the aftermath, searching for survivors. Time and time again you come up empty.

Hope is not a thing with feathers, you think; it is fine like sand, slipping past your fingers. Neither of you stop looking. You and Bede travel on foot or on Rapidash, having the psychics teleport if they're strong enough. Supplies are dwindling. Food and water are rationed.

You don't know how you're still alive. The black wooloo of Wyndon, somehow still breathing when everything around you has been rendered bone and dust. Sometimes you'll be convinced that this isn't reality, that you're sleeping and this is a dream or dead and this is the afterlife, until the hunger pains snap you back. 

And you let them, because you don’t deserve to live. 

The universe, however, doesn't care what you deserve or don't. Because you're still here by some exception, one that feels less and less like a miracle and more and more like a curse.

* * *

Frosmoth passes with the stars in her eyes.

Afterwards, it’s just you and Bede huddling near the warmth of a fire, side by side yet miles apart. You can tell he’s uncomfortable by the hitch of his shoulders and how he averts his eyes, as if he can’t bear to acknowledge the girl who always seemed so strong, falling apart beside him. 

( _Why are you still here?_ You’re afraid to ask, _Why do you care so much?_ ) 

(Because you’re broken, breaking, and cannot offer help, or power, or hope. You’re a sword and a shield, made for war; he’s risking so much to travel with you, he saw what happened to Frosmoth, and yet he’s still _here._ ) 

Pressure is building in your throat but you swallow it down. Here, strength is the power to keep moving, the ability to move one foot ahead of the other, and the last thing you want to do is shatter that illusion, let him know how weak you are. 

“Gloria,” Bede says. 

There’s none of the snarkiness you’re familiar with hearing, instead replaced by a gentle tone—the one you’ve seen him use on his pokemon—and he reaches for your hand only for you to tug it away. 

You don’t want him to know how badly you’re shaking. 

"When Opal took me in, one of the first things she taught me was how to let go."

His voice is soft and airy in wistfulness. There's a certain strength in that too, how he seems to have moved on in ways you cannot.

"Frosmoth trusted you," he muses, "You two are...were really close."

"And I betrayed that trust," you sniffle.

"Gloria, _no_." Hands grab your shoulders (when did he get this touchy?) and spin you around. Eyes like nebulae stare into yours. "You're the reason she trusts in the first place. Frosmoth...Frosmoth gave herself for you because she loves you enough to do so."

"So it’s not your fault, don’t guilt yourself over it. Instead, live for her. Prove to her that she didn’t die in vain.” 

You’re trembling, harder now, and you don’t know who makes the first move but you’re clutching his stupid pink jacket, his downy hair brushing the nape of your neck. He’s tightened awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable, but his hand pats against your back like a heartbeat, warm and constant and here. You finally feel the wet sting of tears down your cheeks as your body loses the last vestiges of control.

In a world that has ceased to listen, your sobs ring out into the night.

* * *

Winter sets with a vengeance. With no trees left to temper the northern winds, they raze through the landscape like a second Darkest Day, cloaking the ground in blackened frost. Temperatures drop far below zero. 

As the nights grow longer, it becomes apparent that Centiskorch’s heat isn’t enough to stave off the cold. You and Bede agree to share body heat, if only out of desperation. 

There's no place for animosity when you're preoccupied with staying warm, and with the closing distance comes understanding. You unravel his identity, this fey boy of saccharine spite and stalwart stubbornness, who had found his way into your life and left just as quickly. He portions his trust like you do his food: in rations, small increments in the way he lends his jacket when you're chilly, the way he leaves part of his meal for you even though he's bigger and should eat more, or the way he talks softly like he's telling secrets that the world cannot hear, words that are only meant for you.

Bede, you think, is a study in contradictions.

For a guy who pushes everyone away, Bede hates being alone. He denies and denies but you can see it in the way he lingers when your team is out, even though he hates bug types. How he says _I'll come with you_ like a plea, scared you'll run away the moment he takes his eyes off you.

He's a strange juxtaposition between honesty and deceit. Bede never pulls his punches, never sugarcoats things; on days when his panache sheds its skin and his words have no bite (“It's not the same, pretending you're better than you are, when there's no one to prove to"), he speaks his mind with the clarity of a cloudless sky.

But when he lies, he lies to himself. 

That he's not hungry, not tired. That Rose loved him. That he isn't hurting from survivor's guilt just as much as you are.

They are woven in deep into his identity, a tangle of old hopes and self-doubt, shoved aside and forgotten. You try to unravel them, in increments, in the way you try to get along with his hatterene, let him have the warmer side of Centiskorch, say _I'm exhausted, let's take a break_ when he looks close to collapsing.

You don't know what Bede feels about you, swaddled together in a battered green sleeping bag with his arm pressed against your back, but you're glad he's here. You're glad you're not alone.

* * *

You’re halfway across the sandstorms of East Lake Axwell when Bede tumbles off his rapidash. 

“Bede!” You call, frantic. Rapidash reels with a whinny and you slide off him, blinking the sand out of your eyes. Bede’s lying on the ground trying to pull himself up but his arms buckle under him, you’ve both been braving bad weather for days. You prop him up and feel his forehead, ignoring his weak grunts of protest, and...yep, that’s a fever. 

You’re torn. You have no idea when this sandstorm’s going to end, or how far it stretches. Rapidash has the stamina of a well-trained pokemon, but he’s no mudsdale. The weather’s wearing him down too, and you have a limited amount of time before he needs to go back in his pokeball. 

“Bede, listen to me.” The boy beneath you makes a muffled noise. “Can your pokemon teleport us out of here?” 

“Wha...no, I don’t think so.” Bede wobbles, half-delirious. “They’ve spent a lot of energy already, and unless we have some ethers I’d rather not push them like that.” 

Normally you’d find his concern for his team endearing, but right now it fills you with frustration. “Rather not push—dammit Bede, if you don’t push them right now they won’t have a trainer to push for!”

He doesn't respond. _Fuck it_ , you decide, releasing Durant. He looks up at you expectantly. "Dig us a camp site. Quickly."

"Gloria, there's no need..." Bede mumbles with his head against your shoulder, "You could just...just..."

"Just what?"

He falters, but pushes on. "...Just leave me behind."

You're appalled. Does he think he's disposable? Does he think you're the type of person to cast someone off the moment they become inconvenient?

 _Isn't that what you always do?_ Says a bitter voice inside you, but you push it away. 

"No, never. I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're—" The words get caught in the emotions running around your brain, and it takes you a second to untangle them. "—important to me. And I won't give up on you just because of something stupid like a fever."

Bede is speechless.

You're sad to see him so surprised by your faith, like unconditionality is an idea he's never considered. It is the surprise of a boy who's always defined himself by his usefulness to others, who thinks the only way to belong is conform to their wants.

Durant digs a trench that shelters the worst of the sandstorm, and you half heft, half drag Bede into your tent. 

"Don't worry," you say, "When we find another berry tree, I'll make curry." It's unlikely that you will, but not impossible; the further you get from Wyndon, the more things seem to have survived the damage. You haven't seen a berry tree yet, but there's already sparse grass and small ponds, trees spotted with spring buds.

You don't know if Bede's listening. He's curled up in a ball, breaking into sweat and shivering, he'll be okay.

"You'll be okay," you say, your voice hitching with both hope and fear. 

You hope that when the time comes, Bede is there to pick the berries with you. 

There is nothing you can do, nothing and always nothing and forever nothing. So you lay down next to him and watch as he fights another war inside his body. Close your eyes, try to sleep.

Outside, the sandstorm keens, and you stay awake listening to his heartbeat.

* * *

Like the legends foretold, the Darkest Day swept through Galar in a maelstrom of blind fury, the entire region its war ground. 

And the memories. They’ve etched themselves in your nightmares, omens of a bygone era. There it was again: what shouldn’t-have-been, a skeletal amalgamation of warped ideals and sharp grief that swallowed the sky, replaced the yawning chasm left behind with coils upon coils of fangs and fury. Claws, tearing the heavens to rake scars across steel, pure beams of energy razing the plaza below.

It emerges in the world with too much, too early, all overloaded energy with nowhere to go but out. 

And so it does. 

More flashbacks, scattered now. Frosmoth spread in front of you, ready to defend with all she’s got. Hop, shoving his sword into your shield, yelling at his dubwool to cotton guard then protect you. 

“Hop, wait!” You remember shouting as he turns around. He (was)is your best friend. You had never wanted the championship, the gym challenge an afterthought so you didn't have to leave his side. He was the one with a dream to fight for, an ideal to work towards; if you ended up taking everything away from him, the least you could do was make sure he had _hope_. Hope for a new life. “Get behind me. We’ll get through this together.”

Hop smiles—you can’t remember his face now, but you think you recognize his smile; the crooked one that never reaches his eyes, the one he always wears after you win—and stays put. 

_You know protect doesn’t fit two people, Glor._ He calls like you two are childhood friends again, chasing wooloo in a field with not a care in the world. Frosmoth screeches as she fires up her own protect, masking him from view. _Cheer up! I’m sure we’ll see each other again, someday._

You chip your nails on the barrier, punch it so hard your skin sloughs off your knuckles. You scream, even though you know he can’t hear you. Because here’s the tragedy of it all—the world is spinning out of control; everything’s wrong, all _wrong_ , and you’re helpless to stop it. 

Your cries fizzle out as the battlefield erases white. 

* * *

Here’s the tragedy of it all. The tragedy is that for all the power you had in the world, you couldn’t save what really matters to you. 

In the end, the universe is not a pokemon. It does not bow down to the whims of people, of nations. 

The gym challenge, the championships. Hop, Marnie, Bede, watching them streak like fallen stars across unforgiving sky, fizzling out before they reached the horizon. Children, honed sharp by competition, weaponized against each other. You were the sword that severed and the shield that barred, but never, _never_ , the hand that controlled them. 

In the end, you never had a choice. 

* * *

Your first kiss is a clumsy affair, born of desperation and grasping at moments, in the fear that you'd miss your chance. 

Bede's lips are chapped and yours are too. Your noses smash painfully against each other, neither of you have brushed in weeks. But the moment you connect, everything is perfect. 

You hold it for a brief eternity before Bede breaks it off, and you take the opportunity to look at him while he's too flustered to object. He's still sweating off the last vestiges of his fever, but that's not the cause of the red creeping up his face, the hot flush of his neck. He’s staring at the ground like he wants it to swallow him whole. 

“You’re not allowed to hurt yourself ever again," You tell him, in a voice breathless with frustration that belies sleepless nights and the relief that prevails them, “You were completely incoherent when last I told you this, so I’ll say it again: I. Need. You.” 

Bede scrunches his nose like he can will the blood away from his face. “I can see that,” he suggests wryly, but what sarcasm his words contain is completely ruined by the waver in his voice. “I can’t make any promises, Gloria.” 

“I know. Promise me you’ll try not to, even if it’s for my sake.” 

“I won’t.” He says, completely serious. 

He averts his eyes, flushes again, then looks at you and pushes on. "And I promise that if you actually give a warning next time you kiss me, I'll do it better."

"Next time?" You hum, as if contemplating the possibility of a future. Smile, or at least try to; you're convinced your mouth has forgotten how. 

After being stuck in the past and present, you like the way the phrase sounds on your tongue. _Next time_. 

"Sure, next time." It's a start, you concede, as you lean in a little slower.

* * *

The houses stand tall under the rays of sunset, familiar silhouettes cutting across the purple and orange sky. Over the hills, a flock of wooloo huddle for warmth. The streetlights are flickering on like they automatically do, and you're struck with the nostalgia of late nights, sneaking out from under your mom's protective watch to fall asleep under the stars.

Nothing's changed much. The cobblestone under your feet is a little scuffed, the vines adorning each building creeping just a bit higher, but overall Wedgehurst seems to have remained in a time capsule compared to other towns. 

You feel giddy. Your feet take off like they have a mind of their own, and you ignore Bede’s shouts to wait up as you swerve a corner. 

Over the bridge, up the steps. You run past the farmer’s market and pokemon center with all their lights out, by an empty train station and motionless windmill. There’s no one in sight but this has been the most civilization you’ve seen in months, and maybe if your legs move fast enough, you won’t be chasing ghosts anymore. 

You run all the way to Postwick, to where the fence that wooloo broke is still wide ajar, to where the path ends in a doorway wreathed in ivy. 

“Mom!” You cry, throwing open the door because no one bothered to lock the doors in your town, “Mom! I’m home!” 

You’re cut short when you see the emptiness of the house. 

The normally bright and cheery walls that you helped your mom paint are chipped and cracked, mold settling between the crevices. The furniture and carpet are eaten away to nothing, and the entire place is coated with dust. It is the sight of what used to be a home, several months too late. 

Bede finds you curled amidst the garden, now overgrown with weeds. 

Inwardly, you feel selfish. You know you shouldn’t cry over being left behind by your parents, when his never wanted him in the first place. 

But if he thinks anything of it, he doesn’t show it. He bursts into your yard running only to cut himself short from swearing at you, and instead crouches directly beside you to offer his hand. 

You squeeze it gratefully. It’s grounding and _there_ , and you take a moment to steel yourself before laughing weakly. “You’d think I’d be used to this, after all those days we searched nothing but ruins.” 

“Bullshit. You’ve never let those other towns discourage you,” Bede says, unaware that that’s all you’ve been doing. “Look, I’ll never come close to understanding what you’re going through, but...are you okay with setting up camp here? We can sleep with the wooloo if that’s easier.” 

You take a deep breath. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

The sky is beautiful, and you sleep the most dreamless sleep you’ve slept in ages.

* * *

Bede, you think, loves like a vow. 

He does it in the same way he walks, the same way he breathes. Because the world can push him down onto his knees and silence his voice but he’ll stand up again, catch his breath and his body and charge onward. 

Bede, you think, is the type to die fighting. 

_I’ve grown up in poverty, an outcast to my parents and society,_ he says, splaying his scars in his words and his story, _I’ve been manipulated and coerced, had my dreams betrayed by the people I trusted. Later, I climbed my way back up to be torn down again._

_I am not a hero._

_I cannot promise things will turn out okay, I cannot promise they’ll even turn out good. I cannot make your stomach full or your nightmares go away, cannot return the Galar you once loved._

_But I love you,_ he speaks, with the conviction of a hurricane, _and nothing can take that away from me, nothing can even try._ Like he’s been fighting all his life, and this love is something worth fighting for. 

To you, he is your strength. To him, you are his hope. 

So you take his hands, breathe in sync with his breath. You say _I love you too_ like a promise, and the two of you succumb together. 

* * *

When you step into the Slumbering Weald, the first thing you notice is the _life_.

There’s flocks of rookidees in the branches, swarms of blipbugs clinging to their leaves. So many skwovet dart across your path that you bring out Vikavolt to airlift you across the tall grass. 

Where the rest of the region deteriorated, this place has flourished in its isolation. 

A weezing breezes by you, a nest on each of its stacks. The thought of the poor baby pokemon being smoked by fumes their every waking moment makes you giggle because _it’s still happening, they’re still here, we’re still here_. Bede looks at you with a funny expression, levitating in the air from his Reuniclus, but you urge Vikavolt onwards before you're able to decipher it. 

The trees that fence an overgrown path speak of timelessness, of eternity, and you see Bede pause to run chapped fingers across bark.

At the conclusion of your journey lies the clearing. Its old ruins are the same as they've always been, stalwart marble veined with lush moss, the river shimmering iridescent in the rising dawn. 

Vikavolt sets you on the steps. You kneel down and take out the battered sword and shield, placing the two of them down side by side. The illusions were fake and the artifacts didn’t work but for once you don’t regret it. Some things, you think, are well worth trying. 

“Thank you,” you say, and leave it at that. 

On your way back, you show Bede shortcuts across the foliage, the tree-trunk bridge across the river, the ledge that you tripped on and the bush you subsequently face-planted into the first time you wandered into the Slumbering Weald, back when your biggest worries were lost wooloo and broken fences. The weald has a strange way of stilling time, and you find yourself listening to the rookidees sing their morning herald across the moor. 

“There must be places unaffected by the Darkest Day. If the pokemon survived, so did the people.” Bede takes your hand, interlacing his fingers with yours like a future. “This means we still have a chance.” 

You breathe sharply, and for the first time in forever, the wind beckons like an old friend. 

“Maybe,” you say, “But there’s nothing here. Let’s move on.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I'm aware that centiskorch is literally the radiator pokemon and powerful enough to heat its body to 1500F but did you know that my thirst for bederia cuddling for warmth is too high to be measured by any system of measurement known to man and therefore makes the executive decision
> 
> Also the gen 8 protag is by far the most passive protag we’ve had in the pokemon franchise, who hardly makes an independent decision in the plot without an NPC dragging them through it, and you cannot prove me wrong
> 
> Scream at me on tumblr [here](https://druddigoon.tumblr.com/)


End file.
